mountains, was cool--a barren, rocky, treeless spot. A great deal of
bituminous shale was lying about, which burned in the camp-fires
fairly well, but with a black heavy smoke and a strong smell.
The limestone fragments which lay about, on being split, emitted a
powerful odour of bitumen. Farther up the gully there is a chalybeate
spring, and the broken fragments of the adjacent rocks are much
stained with iron. After a restful halt we retraced our route by a low
path which avoided the difficult precipices above the Badush, forded
it several times, crossed a low pass, descended to the valley of the
Mauri Zarin, forded the river, and marched for some miles along its
left bank, till the valley opened on great grassy slopes, the skirts
of the rocky spurs which buttress the grand mountain Shuturun, the
"Camel Mountain," so called from its shape. It was a very
uninteresting march, through formless gravelly hills, with their
herbage all eaten down, nothing remaining but tamarisk scrub and a
coarse yellow salvia. There were neither camps nor travellers; indeed,
one need never look for camps where there is no herbage.
This is a charming camping-ground covered with fine turf, damp, I
fear, and some of the men are "down" with fever and rheumatism. There
is space to see who comes and who goes, and though the altitude is
only 8400 feet, last night was quite cool. Ischaryar, Aziz Khan's
devoted young servant, the gentlest and kindest Bakhtiari I have seen,
became quite ill of acute rheumatism with fever, and felt so very ill
and weak that he thought he was going to die. I sent some medicine to
him, but he would not take it, saying that his master had spoken
unkindly to him, and he had no wish to live. However, this morbid
frame of mind was overcome by firm dealing, and Aziz attended to him
all night, and salol, etc., are curing him.
He is the one grateful creature that I have seen among these
Orientals, and his gratitude is in return for a mere trifle. We were
fording a stream one hot day, and seeing him scooping up water with
difficulty in his hands, I took out my mug for him. Ever since he has
done anything that he can for me. He brings tasteful little bouquets
of flowers, gathers wild cherries, and shows the little courtesies
which spring from a kindly nature. He said several times to Mirza, "It
isn't only that the _Khanum_ gave me the cup, but she took trouble for
me." It may be imagined what a desert as to grateful and kindly
feeling I am living in when this trifle appears like an oasis. Hard,
cunning, unblushing greed is as painful a characteristic of the
Bakhtiaris as it is of the Persians.
Hassan is now "down with fever" and the opium craving, and one of the
_charvadars_ with fever. The cold winds of Gunak were too much for
them. All day shots have been heard among the near mountains. The
Hajwands, a powerful tribe, and the Abdulwands are fighting about a
recent cutting off of a cow's tail, but the actual cause of the feud
is deeper, and dates farther back. Aziz Khan wants us to return to Diz
Arjanak, fearing that we may become implicated, and the Agha is
calling him a coward, and telling him to ride back alone. Bang! Bang!
The firing is now close and frequent, and the dropping shots are
varied by straggling volleys. With the glasses I can see the tribesmen
loading and firing on the crests of the near hills. A great number are
engaged. One tribe has put up a stone breastwork at our end of the
valley, but the enemy is attacking the other.
3 P.M.--An hour ago Mirab Khan arrived with a number of armed horse
and footmen. Before he left he spent, I may say wasted, nearly an hour
of my time again on his maladies, and again wrote down the directions
for his medicines. Volleys fired very near startled him into
departing, and he rode hastily back to Arjanak, fearing, as he said,
an attack. Nominally, he armed the guides and the men he left behind,
but one of the guns has neither caps nor powder, and another has only
three caps. All the animals have been driven in.
4 P.M.--A man with grimy arms bare to the elbow has just run down to
the Agha's camp from the conflict. He says that his people, who are
greatly inferior to the Hajwands in numbers, thought it was the camp
of the Shah's revenue collector, and sent him to ask him to mediate.
The Agha expressed his willingness to become a mediator on certain
conditions. There is much excitement in camp, all the men who are well
crowding round this envoy, who is guilty of saying that fifty men are
to attack our camps to-night.
7.30 P.M.--The Agha, with the Sahib and Aziz Khan, three brave men
mounted and armed with rifles and revolvers, went to mediate. I went
to a knoll in the valley with some of our men, above which on either
side were hills occupied by the combatants, and a large number of
tribesmen crowned the crest of a hill lying across the ravine higher
up. The firing was frequent, but at long range, and I was near enough
to see that only one man fell.
Our party rode on till they reached the top of a low ridge, where they
dismounted, reconnoitred, and then passed out of sight, being fired on
by both parties. The tribesmen kept on firing irregularly from the
hill crests, occasionally running down the slopes, firing and running
into cover. The Sahib's _tufangchi_, who is of Cheragh Ali's tribe,
asked me, "Is this the way they fight in your country," I asked him if
he would not like to be fighting? and he replied, "Yes, if it were my
quarrel." The sun was very bright, the sky very blue, and the smoke
very white as it drifted over the lonely ravine and burst in clouds
from the hill-tops. I saw the combatants distinctly without a glass,
and heard their wild war-shouts. What a matter for regret is this
useless tribal fighting, with its dreary consequences of wailing women
and fatherless children! "Why don't the English come and take us? Why
don't the English come and give us peace?" are surely the utterances
of a tired race.
After sunset the Agha returned, having so far succeeded in his mission
that the headmen have promised to suspend hostilities for to-morrow,
but still shots are fired now and then. I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] A "Diz" is a natural fort believed to be impregnable.
[7] To English people the Bakhtiaris profess great friendliness for
England, and the opinion has been expressed by some well-informed
writers that, in the event of an English occupation of the country,
their light horse, drilled by English officers, would prove valuable
auxiliaries. I am inclined, however, to believe that if a collision
were to occur in south-west Persia between two powers which shall be
nameless, the Bakhtiari horsemen would be sold to the highest bidder.
LETTER XX
LAKE IRENE, _July 27_.
Yesterday we marched through narrow defiles and along hillsides to
this lake, without seeing a tent, a man, or even a sheep or goat,
following a stream which bears several names and receives several
torrents which burst, full grown, from powerful springs in the
mountain sides--a frequent phenomenon in this country--from its source
till its entrance into this lake. Its two sides differ remarkably. On
the right bank rise the magnificent ranges which form Shuturun, broken
up into precipices, deep ravines, and peaks, all rocky and shapely,
and absolutely denuded of soil. The mountains on the left bank are
great shapeless masses of bare gravel rising into the high but blunt
summit of the Sefid Kuh, with only occasional outcrops of rock; here
and there among the crevices of the rocky spurs of Shuturun the
_Juniperus excelsa_ plants itself; otherwise, on the sun-scorched
gravel only low tamarisk bushes, yellow salvias, a few belated
campanulas, and a very lovely blue _Trichodesma mollis_ remain.
On reaching the top of a very long ascent there was a unique surprise,
for below, walled in by precipitous mountain sides, lies a lake of
wonderful beauty, owing to its indescribable colour. Wild, fierce, and
rocky are the high mountains in which this gem is set, and now
verdureless, except that in some places where their steep sides enter
the water willows and hawthorns find scanty roothold. Where the river
enters the lake there is a thicket of small willows, and where it
leaves it its bright waters ripple through a wood of cherry, pear,
plum, and hawthorn. A broad high bank of gravel lies across a part of
its lower end, and all seemed so safe and solitary that I pitched my
camp here for Sunday at an unusual distance from the other camps.
"Things are not what they seem." Two armed Hajwands visited the camps,
shots were heard at intervals this morning, and in the night some of
the watch said they saw a number of men advancing towards us from
under the bushes. I heard the sharp crack of our own rifles twice, and
the Agha and Sahib calling on every one to be on the alert; the mules
were driven in, and a great fire was made, but nothing came of it.
To-night Mirab Khan's guides, who have been with us for some days,
have gone back, journeying at night and hiding in caves by day for
fear of being attacked.
This lovely lake, having no native name, will be known henceforward
geographically as Lake Irene. Its waters lie in depths of sapphire
blue, with streaks and shallows of green, but what a green! Surely
without a rival on earth! Were a pea transparent, vivid, full of
points and flashes of interior light, that would be the nearest
approach to the colour, which changes never, while through the blazing
hours the blue of the great depths in the centre has altered from
sapphire to turquoise, and from turquoise to lapis-lazuli, one end and
one side being permanently bordered round the margin with liquid
emerald. The mountains have changed from rose to blue, from blue to
gray, from gray to yellow, and are now flushing into pink. It is a
carnival of colour, before the dusty browns and dusty grays which are
to come.
_Camp Sarawand, July 29._--To-day's march has been a change from the
grand scenery of the Bakhtiari mountains to low passes and gravelly
spurs, which sink down upon a plain. A blazing hillside; a mountain of
gravel among others of similar ugliness, sprinkled with camel thorn
and thistles; a steep and long descent to a stream; ripe wheat on some
irrigated slopes; above these the hundred hovels of the village of
Sarawand clinging one above another to the hillside, their white clay
roofs intolerable in the fierce light; more scorched gravel hills
breaking off abruptly, and then a blazing plain, in a mist of dust and
heat, and low hills on the farther side seen through a brown haze,
make up the view from my tent. The plain is Silakhor in Persia proper,
and, _nolens volens_, that heat and dust must shortly be encountered
in the hottest month of the year. Meanwhile the mercury is at 105 deg. in
the tent.
Outside is a noisy crowd of a mixed race, more Persian than Lur, row
behind row. The _ketchuda_ said if I would stand outside and show
myself the people would be pacified, but the desired result was not
attained, and the crushing and pushing were fearful--not that the
people here or elsewhere are ever rude, it is simply that their
curiosity is not restrained by those rules which govern ours. The Agha
tried to create a diversion by putting a large musical box at a little
distance, but they did not care for it. I attempted to give each woman
a card of china buttons, which they like for sewing on the caps of
their children, but the crush was so overpowering that I was obliged
to leave it to Aziz. Then came the sick people with their many woes
and wants, and though now at sunset they have all gone, Aziz comes in
every few minutes with the laugh of a lost spirit, bringing a fresh
copper bowl for eye lotion, quite pleased to think of my annoyance at
being constantly dragged up from my writing.
_Camp Parwez, July 31._--We left early in the morning, _en route_ for
the fort of Yahya Khan, the powerful chief of the Pulawand tribe, with
a tall, well-dressed, and very respectable-looking man, Bagha Khan,
one of his many fathers-in-law, the father of the present "reigning
favourite," as guide. It was a very pretty track, pursuing sheep-paths
over steep spurs of Parwez, and along the narrow crests of ridges,
always with fine views. On reaching an alpine valley, rich in flowers,
we halted till the caravan approached, and then rode on, the "we" that
day being the guide on foot, and the Agha, the Sahib, Aziz Khan,
Mirza, and myself on horseback in single file. Three men looked over
the crest of a ridge to the left and disappeared abruptly, and I
remarked to Mirza that this was the most suspicious circumstance we
had yet seen. There was one man on the hill to the right, with whom
the guide exchanged some sentences in patois.
The valley opened out on the stony side of a hill, which had to be
crossed. As we climbed it was crested with a number of men with long
guns. Presently a number of shots were fired at us, and the reloading
of the guns was distinctly seen. The order was given to "scatter" and
proceed slowly. When the first shot was fired Bagha Khan, who must
have been well known to all his tribesmen, dodged under a rock. Then
came an irregular volley from a number of guns, and the whistle and
thud of bullets over and among us showed that the tribesmen, whatever
were their intentions, were in earnest. To this volley the Agha
replied by a rifle shot which passed close over their heads, but again
they reloaded rapidly. We halted, and Aziz Khan was sent up to parley
with them. No one could doubt his courage after that solitary ascent
in the very face of the guns.
Karim cantered up, anxious to fight, Mujid and Hassan, much excited,
dashed up, and we rode on slowly, Hadji and his _charvadars_ bringing
up the caravan as steadily as if there were no danger ahead. Not a man
showed the "white feather," though most, like myself, were "under
fire" for the first time. When we reached the crest of the pass such a
wild lot crowded about us, their guns yet hot from firing upon us.
Such queer arms they had--one gun with a flint lock a century old,
with the "Tower mark" upon it, loaded sticks, and long knives. With
much talking and excitement they accompanied us to this
camping-ground.[8]
The men varied considerably in their stories. They were frightened,
they said, and fired because they thought we were come to harm them.
At first I was sorry for them, and regarded them as merely defending
their "hearths and homes," for in the alpine valley behind the hill
are their black tents, their families, their flocks and herds--their
world, in fact. But they told another story, and said they took us for
a party of Hajwands. This was untenable, and the Agha told them that
they knew that Hajwands do not ride on English saddles, and carry
white umbrellas, and march with big caravans of mules. To me, when
they desired my services, they said that had they known that one of
the party was a _Hak[=i]m_ they never would have fired.
Later, from Hadji and others I have heard what I think may be the true
version of the affair. They knew that the party was a small one--only
three rifles; that on the fifteen baggage-animals there were things
which they specially covet, the value of which rumour had doubtless
magnified a hundredfold; and that we had no escort. Behind were a
number of the Sarawand men, and the Pulawands purposed, if we turned
back or showed the "white feather" in any way, to double us up between
the two parties and rob the caravan at discretion. The Agha was
obliged to speak very severely to them, telling them that firing on
travellers is a grave offence, and deserves as such to be represented
to the Governor of Burujird. I cannot acquit the demure-looking guide
of complicity in this transaction.
At this height of 9400 feet there is a pleasant plain, on which our
assailants are camped, and our camps are on platforms in a gully near
the top of Parwez. It is all very destitute of springs or streams, and
we have only snow-water, and that only during the hot hours of the
day, for ourselves and the animals.
The tribes among which we are now are powerful and very predatory in
their habits. Their loyalty to the Ilkhani is shadowy, and their
allegiance to the Shah consists in the payment of tribute, which
cannot in all cases be exacted. Indeed, I think that both in Tihran
and Isfahan there is only imperfect information as to the attitude of
the Bakhtiari Lurs. Their unification under the rule of the Ilkhani
grows more and more incomplete as the distance from Isfahan increases,
and these tribes, which are under the government of Burujird
nominally, are practically not under the Ilkhani at all. Blood feuds,
predatory raids, Khans at war with each other, tribal disputes and
hostilities, are nearly universal. It is not for the interest of
Persia to produce by her misrule and intrigues such a chronic state
of insecurity as makes the tribes desire any foreign interference
which will give them security and rest, and relieve them from the
oppressive exactions of the Persian governors.
On a recent march I was riding alone in advance of the caravan when I
met two men, one mounted, the other on foot. The pedestrian could not
have been passed anywhere unnoticed. He looked like a Sicilian
brigand, very handsome and well dressed, walked with a long elastic
stride, and was armed with a double-barrelled gun and two revolvers.
He looked hard at me, with a jolly but not unfriendly look, and then
seeing the caravan, passed on. This was Jiji, a great robber Khan of
the Hajwand tribe, whose name inspires much fear. Afterwards he met
Aziz Khan, and sent this picturesque message: "Sorry to have missed
you in my own country, as I should have liked to have left you
standing in your skins."
I went up the Kuh-i-Parwez with Bagha Khan, the guide of whom I have
such grave suspicions, in the early morning, when the cool blue
shadows were still lying in the ravines. Parwez, which on this side is
an uninteresting mountain of herbage-covered gravelly slopes, falls
down 4300 feet to the Holiwar valley on the other in a series of
tremendous battlemented precipices of dark conglomerate rock.
The level summit of Parwez, though about 11,000 feet in altitude, is
as uninteresting as the shapeless slopes by which we ascended it, but
this dip on the southern side is wonderful, and is carried on to the
gap of Bahrain, where it has a perpendicular scarp from its summit to
the river of 5000 feet, and as it grandly terminates the Outer range,
it looks like a glorious headland abutting on the Silakhor plain.
As a panoramic view it is the finest I have had from any mountain,
taking in the great Shuturun range--the wide cultivated plain of
Silakhor, with its many villages; the winding Ab-i-Diz, its yellow
crops, hardly distinguishable from the yellow soil and hazy yellow
hills whose many spurs descend upon the plain--all merged in a haze of
dust and heat. The eye is not tempted to linger long upon that
specimen of a Persian summer landscape, but turns with relief to the
other side of the ridge, to a confused mass of mountains of great
height, built up of precipices of solid rock, dark gray, weathered
into black and denuded of soil, a mystery of chasms, rifts, and
river-beds, sheltering and feeding predatory tribes, but unknown to
the rest of the world.
The chaos of mountain summits, chasms, and precipices is very
remarkable, merging into lower and less definite ranges, with alpine
meadows at great heights, and ravines much wooded, where charcoal is
burned and carried to Burujird and Hamadan. Among the salient points
of this singular landscape are the mighty Shuturun range, the peak of
Kuh-i-Kargun on the other side of the Silakhor plain, the river which
comes down from Lake Irene, the Holiwar, with the fantastic range of
the Kuh-i-Haft-Kuh (seven peaks) on its left bank, descending abruptly
to the Ab-i-Zaz, beyond which again rises the equally precipitous
range of the Kuh-i-Ruhbar. Near the Holiwar valley is a mountain
formed by a singular arrangement of rocky buttresses, surmounted by a
tooth-like rock, the Tuk-i-Karu, of which the guide told the legend
that in "ancient times" a merchant did a large trade in a tent at the
top of it, and before he died buried his treasure underneath it.
A very striking object from the top is the gorge or canyon, the
Tang-i-Bahrain, by which the Ab-i-Burujird leaves the plain of
Silakhor and enters upon its rough and fretted passage through
ravines, for the most part inaccessible except to practised Ilyat
mountaineers.
"Had I come up to dig for the hidden treasure of Tuk-i-Karu?" the
guide asked. "Was I seeking gold? Or was I searching for medicine
plants to sell in Feringhistan?"
The three days here have been rather lively. The information
concerning routes has been singularly contradictory. There is a path
which descends over 4000 feet to the Holiwar valley, through which,
for certain reasons, it is desirable to pass. Some say it is
absolutely impassable for laden mules, others that it can be traversed
with precautions, others again that they would not take even their
asses down; that there are shelving rocks, and that if a mule slipped
it would go down to ----. Hadji with much force urges that we should
descend to the plain, and go by a comparatively safe route to
Khuramabad, leave the heavy baggage there, and get a strong escort of
_sowars_ from the Governor for the country of the Pulawands. There is
much that is plausible in this plan, the Sahib approves of it, and the
Agha, with whom the decision rests, has taken it into very careful
consideration, but I am thoroughly averse to it, though I say nothing.
Hadji says he cannot risk his mules on the path down to the Holiwar
valley. I could have filled pages with the difficulties which have
been grappled with during the last few weeks of the journey as to
guides, routes, perils, etc., two or three hours of every day being
occupied in the attempt to elicit truth from men who, from either
inherent vagueness and inaccuracy or from a deliberate intention to
deceive, contradict both themselves and each other, but on this
occasion the difficulties have been greater than ever; the order of
march has been changed five times, and we have been obliged to remain
here because the Agha has not considered that the information he has
obtained has warranted him in coming to a decision.
Yesterday evening the balance of opinion was definitely against the
Holiwar route, and Hadji was so vehemently against it that he shook a
man who said it was passable. This morning the Sahib with a guide and
Abbas Ali examined the road. The Sahib thought it was passable. Abbas
Ali said that the mules would slip off the shelving rocks. All day
long there have been Lur visitors, some saying one thing, and some
another, but a dream last night reconciled Hadji to take the route,
and the Agha after carefully weighing the risks all round has decided
upon it.
All these pros and cons have been very interesting, and there have
been various little incidents. I have had many visitors and "patients"
from the neighbouring camp, and among them three of the men who fired
upon us.
The trifle of greatest magnitude was the illness of Aziz's mare, the
result of a kick from _Screw_. She had an enormous swelling from knee
to shoulder, could not sleep, and could hardly eat, and as she belongs
partly to Isfandyar Khan, Aziz Khan has been distracted about her, and
has distracted me by constant appeals to me to open what seemed an
abscess. I had not the courage for this, but it was done, and the cut
bled so profusely that a pad, a stone, and a bandage had to be
applied. Unfortunately there was no relief from this venture, and Aziz
"worrited" me out of my tent three times in the night to look at the
creature. Besides that, he had about twenty ailing people outside the
tent at 6 A.M., always sending to me to "come at once."